We Rock!!

Well, as expected the World Cup spectacle came and went in a blink of an eye.

We did have time to 'stop and smell the roses', so to speak and boy were they sweet! South Africa showed the world that we mean business and KZN that we are an unrivalled tourist destination. For us the opportunity to market Durban and the East Coast to the rest of the world was great and we put on our 'Sunday best'.

The comments that we got from our guests were incredible and we are all the more confident in the product this part of the world has to offer because of it. "What a beautiful city", "amazing beaches" and of course "incredible weather" were just a few!

Thank you to all for spending this time with us and we hope to have you, friends and family back again soon.

www.endless-summer-tours.co.za

Keep well
Proudly South African!!

Who has had enough of the 'Jeep Jockeys'?

Well I just returned from another very pleasant trip to the Kruger. The weather was great, sightings fantastic and the joy of the bush soothing.

What is really troubling though is the number of open game-viewing vehicles that are tearing up the south of the park these days. Racing from one road to the next on their quest to find 'The BIG 5!' Over the two days it became quite a talking point for us as we went about photographing the abundance of birds, studying the trees and viewing animals from the tiny tortoise to the common impala.

It felt a bit like the child's tale of 'The Hare and The Tortoise', we were plodding along doing our thing, whilst they were constantly flying past us! We'd catch up when they stopped for the mandatory half a minute to view the 'common game', and then speed off in a cloud of dust. The thing is, if they took just a second to look around they'd realise their clients are sitting there with the longest faces, enjoying themselves only because they have waited so long to travel to Africa.

The prize goes to that so called 'guide' who on our final afternoon we had the pleasure of speaking to. As he approached I waved him down, and then politely asked how his morning had been. His response was fairly direct, "fine, but the kitty cats don't want to come out and play." I then told him that 500m back there was rhino and elephant, and a kilometer after that a huge herd of buffalo, as well as some other nice game. His child like response was, "That's cool, but I want kitty cats!"

I do need to thank the 'Jeep Jockeys' for one thing though, with all your antics you guys made my job very easy, and I ended up looking like a king! As from the photos you can see we had some great sightings of cats. Funny thing was that at all of our 4 cat sightings, we only witnessed one Jeep. Wonder if that jockey ever did find his Kitty Cats????

Well, looks like the tortoise triumphed again!!

Visit Face Book to see more photos of our Kitty Cats........

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=191395&id=159541836718&saved#!/pages/Endless-Summer-Tours/159541836718

Garden Route

Well last week we had a great trip down the Garden route and up into the Karoo.

Boy was it hot though, the further south we went the more we saw signs warning us of the drought stricken area. According to the locals the Garden Route is not so 'gardeny' because of it. Which is clearly why we weren't blown away, but the views were beautiful, the sea water warm and our accommodation great.

We did find the atmosphere rather dull though, maybe because of the heat and drought, maybe because of the season (most coastal areas are quiet) or maybe that's just how they are?? Take Knysna for example; a beautiful water front, packed restaurants and bars but no atmosphere. We barely had to raise our voices above a whisper, quite dissapointing actually.

The Karoo was even hotter, but funny enough had seen more rain than the coast. Can't say we got much time to relax though, suppose we need a holiday....

Watch the quick clip of some of our highlights, at least I got some good waves in water warmer then Durban!

Surfing South Africa

Hi there and thanks for reading my first blog of 2010. I took a little break over the festive season and hope you all enjoyed the holidays as much as I did.

Well we've had a quick start to the new year, with a couple of great tours already in the bag. The best by far was the surf tour with Edouard, our new mate from Holland. We had some sick weather, small but consistent surf, with a really relaxing vibe.

This time of year of course the weather is hot, really hot and not only Edouard was battling with the heat. This however meant long hours spent surfing and enjoying the waves. It worked out quite well for him though because we got big enough surf to have some great rides, but at the same time not too heavy, which allowed him a better opportunity to find his feet so to speak.

Being a lone traveller meant we really managed to get him into the South African way of life, which of course is our main goal when showing guests our country. Hanging out on the beach, a surfer breakfast of rolls and Cheese Naks, cruising around checking different surf breaks and an afternoon braai with a couple of cold ones. All the things that make this country great and allow us to have a lifestyle like no other!

Thanks Edouard for helping us to continue the 'Endless Summer', make new friends and live the dream, hope you enjoyed it my man...

Watch the video of Edouards trip, images are always better than words.

Urban Warfare

I was sitting here quietly working on my computer when I heard a hang of a commotion going on outside. I knew it was monkeys, but what I didn't realise was that there was a full on gang fight going on. Luckily I had my video camera handy, but still only caught the end of it. The troop from lower Mornigside had clearly crossed the street and were in the other troops territory, the road must be the border! Can't beleive how they were so caught up in their gang war that they were oblivious to the busy road.

Check it out!

Another Crazy Kruger Sighting!!

Hi all, just want to share some words about my latest trip to the Kruger.....

Firstly thank you to Evelyn & Fred for allowing us to use their house in the Sabie Park nature reserve. Sitting deep in the bush with no fences, with only the sounds of the camp fire and the night, is an experience few get the privilege to do. The hyena hung around the property all night every night, clearly spurred on by the smells coming from our bush 'braai'.

We had some truly great sightings, but from the first day I realised that going a bit north would bring reward. I say this because we had breakfast at Mlondozi dam the first morning and what a gorgeous sight. Whilst cooking breakfast an endless procession of game visited the dam, at one point we could see: Elephant, Rhino, zebra, wilderbeest, water buck, hippo and warthog all at the same time!

So the decision was made to head north to a remote picnic site called Nhlanguleni and it paid off. First we were lucky enough to see an entire heard of elephant playing in the mud and water, then as we pushed on a little further 5 wild dog cooling off under a tree at the road side. This is where it got really interesting. The elephant had left the water hole and were making their way to where ever elephants make their way to, but the dogs were on that route. Elephants being the massive creatures that they are take it upon themselves to police the 'jungle' so to speak. First they let off a couple of quiet trumpets and out of the tree line came runnng another 12 dogs that had been lying there undetected. Before a massive bull came along and confronted all 17 dogs. He wasn't as gentle as the rest of the herd and came running at the pack, trumpeting and flapping his ears. An absolutely incredible sight to see, elephant in charge and dogs scattering in all directions....

Still on a high from the sighting we were then treated to a whole host of game viewing. At a place called Lugmag dam we saw a sable antelope in all its glory and I have footage where the sable, a rhino and a giraffe are all in the same frame. We eventually reached the picnic spot and went about our biz as elephant, giraffe, zebra etc came to drink.

It was a fantastic sight, a typical savanna setting with thirsty animals everywhere and no doubt some hungry lions in the shadows....

Watch this space for the footage of the wild dog versus elephant encounter! And follow this link to our fan page to see the photos:

http://bit.ly/Byumq

Stop ruining our holidays!

I just returned from a great trip to the Umfolozi game reserve, with the best viewing I’ve had there so far. My guests were only in SA for a short time so we did a quick one night trip up there, as well as a boat cruise on the St. Lucia estuary.

Our first morning was filled with sightings of all the common animals, birds and other wonders of nature. It was a great start to what would become a quite satisfactory trip. We stopped for breakfast on the banks of the Black Umfolozi and enjoyed a super bush breakfast. With tummy’s full we set back to searching for the big 5 (we had only seen some distant buffalo until now). We rounded a corner to see a road full of cars, jostling and manoeuvring for position. Two cheetahs had taken down a nyala and were now feeding about 80m away, this was all taking place in a fairly open area except for a few tall trees and the occasional shrub. Now I’m going to go off on a bit of a tangent…………………..

As more and more cars arrived, so chaos seemed to ensue. Eventually the road was packed with cars lined two by two for a 100m. Even then it was fine, until the inevitable monkeys with no respect for other people started to climb of out their cars. I’ve never seen anything like it! They were literally walking down the middle of the road to find a better gap to view the kill. Luckily for the rest of the game viewers the cheetahs were far more concerned with finishing their kill, before some bigger carnivore came to chase them off, that they went about it none the less.

The kicker came though when a ranger came round the corner, suddenly they were scattering like a herd of impala being chased, diving head long into their cars. Which brings me to my point , these aren’t ignorant people who don’t know any better. They are rude, inconsiderate people who know the rules, why else would they go running for cover when a ranger arrives? And it didn’t end there…

We also had a lion sighting with even more extraordinary behaviour! We were making our way down to the Umfolozi River, and as we rounded the corner to cross the main bridge there were three people standing, binoculars in hand scoping the opposite bank. The lady turns to me and says:”there’s a lion over there”. By now I couldn’t take anymore, so I enquired in my sweetest voice why she was out of her vehicle, to which she replied:”Cause I want to be lion’s lunch”. I pointed out the lioness to my group and then told this so called tour guide (yes lady, when you wear a badge people notice), that she was a disgrace to the profession and told her guests they weren’t in the best of hands. They left pretty promptly after that, oh if looks could kill!

Any how we had a fantastic stay at Impila camp, saw cheetah a second time chasing some impala. We had great sightings of rhino and buffalo, as well as a brilliant encounter with two bull elephants. So in all quite a successful trip and certainly gave me a new perspective on this KZN reserve.

Lastly to that ‘tour guide’, if you actually knew anything about the bush, you’d know that lion are in no way solitary animals. Where did you think the rest of her pride was? They could’ve been anywhere, maybe one of these days you will be lion’s lunch! Well it can only strengthen the gene pool...